Music Sketches

This introduction provides students and scholars with the information and skills they need when studying composers' sketches.

Friedemann Sallis (Author)

9780521866484, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 January 2015

290 pages, 34 b/w illus. 6 tables 17 music examples
25.3 x 18 x 1.8 cm, 0.73 kg

The term 'music sketch' relates to the vast variety of documents that are used by composers to work out a musical technique or idea and to prepare their work for performance or publication. These documents can often provide crucial insights into authorship, biography, editorial practice and musical analysis. This introduction provides students and scholars with the knowledge and skills they need to embark on research projects involving the study of composers' working documents. Presenting examples of the compositional process over a 400-year period, it includes a selection of detailed case studies on how sketches were created and the techniques that were used, such as transcription and the sorting of loose leaves. Numerous illustrations of manuscripts and autographs, many of which have never been published before, show how these vital documents can be used to better understand compositional processes.

Preface
1. Introduction
2. Sketch studies past and present
3. Tracking down evidence of the creative process
4. The physical objects of the compositional process
5. Studying loose leaves
6. Sketchbooks
7. Transcription and facsimile reproduction
8. Sketches and the critical edition of music
9. Dangerous liaisons: the evolving relationship between sketch studies and analysis
10. Musical palimpsests
Appendix: Beethoven sketchbooks published between 1913 and 2013
Glossary.

Subject Areas: Music: styles & genres [AVG], Theory of music & musicology [AVA]